31.
O Lord, I have been talking to the people;
Thought's wheels have round me whirled a fiery zone,
And the recoil of my words' airy ripple
My heart unheedful has puffed up and blown.
Therefore I cast myself before thee prone:
Lay cool hands on my burning brain, and press
>From my weak heart the swelling emptiness.
FEBRUARY.
1.
I TO myself have neither power nor worth,
Patience nor love, nor anything right good;
My soul is a poor land, plenteous in dearth--
Here blades of grass, there a small herb for food--
A nothing that would be something if it could;
But if obedience, Lord, in me do grow,
I shall one day be better than I know.
2.
The worst power of an evil mood is this--
It makes the bastard self seem in the right,
Self, self the end, the goal of human bliss.
But if the Christ-self in us be the might
Of saving God, why should I spend my force
With a dark thing to reason of the light--
Not push it rough aside, and hold obedient course?
3.
Back still it comes to this: there was a man
Who said, "I am the truth, the life, the way:"--
Shall I pass on, or shall I stop and hear?--
"Come to the Father but by me none can:"
What then is this?--am I not also one
Of those who live in fatherless dismay?
I stand, I look, I listen, I draw near.
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